Salvation Army.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4858, 25 January 1894, Page 1

Salvation Army.

♦ The Indian contingent of the Salvation Army, now on a visit to Christchurch, has been holding some very interesting meetings in the Victoria Street Hall, preceded by street processions and open-air meetings. Very great interest has been taken in the visit, and tbe meetings have been crowded. The visitors include men from India, Ceylon and other parts of Asiai speaking among them most of the Eastern vernaculars and representing the four principal types of the Eastern races, and (before their conversion to the Salvation Army) the four religions of the East. Last evening a special meeting was held in the hall, which was decorated after the Eastern fashion, and a most interesting programme was gone through, including illustrated accounts of the manners and customs of the Brahmins, the Hindoos, the Malaya, the Arabians, together with their religious faiths and ceremonial forms. Two of the officers, who themselveß had been followers of Buddha, gave addresses upon the Buddhistic faith, urging that, as popularly understood, it failed to satisfy in vital parts its adherents, and that in consequence their countrymen were miserable, and in a most wretched condition of thought. One of the speakers touched upon the introduction of some of the tenets of Buddhism into Western religious thought in a masterly style. The contingent will leave for Wellington to-day. ____________